This week, the City of Newton achieved Safe Harbor status with regard to a state housing law, Chapter 40B — over 50 years after the law was enacted in 1969. In communities where Safe Harbor status has not been achieved, developers may bypass some local zoning requirements for projects that include at least a certain amount of affordable housing. Now with Safe Harbor status, the Newton Zoning Board of Appeals may enforce all local zoning requirements.
A municipality may achieve 40B Safe Harbor status in either of two ways:
- If at least 10% of the municipality’s year-round housing units in the latest census are eligible to be included in the State’s Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI), or
- If the land on which the municipality’s housing units that are eligible for the SHI is at least 1.5% of the municipality’s total land area.
As reported by Mayor Ruthanne Fuller on January 5, the City of Newton recently updated its calculations of both measures (see memo: Update on Chapter 40B Safe Harbor Status), resulting in a shortfall of about 20 SHI units below the 10% threshold for Safe Harbor.
Then on January 8, the City issued a building permit to Garden Homes, the new owner of the Dunstan Residences (Dunstan East) project, allowing the construction of 292 housing units, of which 25% (73 units) will be designated affordable. That allowed Newton to exceed the 10% threshold and thus achieve 40B Safe Harbor status.
Achieving the 10% threshold also means that Newton may now be approved to join seven other Massachusetts municipalities in a Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources experiment that will allow those communities to ban the use of fossil fuels for heating and cooling in new construction and major renovations.
Although the City has achieved Safe Harbor status, this does not mean that 10% of the City’s housing stock is actually affordable. Guidelines issued by the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) allow for the inclusion of all units in a development if 25% of the units in a rental project are affordable up to 80% of Area Median Income (AMI) or if 20% of the units in a rental project are affordable up to 50% of AMI. The Safe Harbor Update memo uses the Northland Charlemont 40B project as an example, where 25% of the 370 units are affordable at 80% of AMI, and all of the units (including the market-rate units) are counted toward the SHI.
